This is not a guessing game, or a made for social media streaming event. This is really … real!

I am crying inside, and sometimes outside, trying to figure out who this Latina is, who I am!

OK, my given name is Patricia, which can throw people off guard. After all, it does not immediately flag my ethnicity, like “Maria” might for example. Besides, to use the ugly term of this country’s racist past (present), my complexion allows me to “pass.” What I’m saying is this: I can be in conversations with other college students who make offensive comments about immigrants without knowing my situation. Do I speak up?

I am a first generation student. Through this fact alone, I’m frequently labeled a role model by well-meaning adults. Perhaps other young people like this label, but I do not appreciate the extra level of pressure. Besides, this label often evolves into being considered the spokesperson for an entire ethnic category. Yes, this could be really cool and provide me with motivation, to be a flag-bearer, to show others how aspirations can be fulfilled. But tell me, does a white student get asked how whites as a group feel about a particular issue?

Maybe I should not have taken the financial aid package that led me to this well-known private college filled with students who are white and affluent. The latter casually make plans for restaurants and clubs and weekend activities that, individually, would empty my thin pocketbook for the rest of the semester. Yes, I have a few dollars left from my job, and I know that many white kids work hard too, but seriously, do you think that I feel better when one of my new friends offers to pay for something just so I can go along?

My academic advisor is skilled – at glancing at the class schedule I have put together, giving it the smell test, and then signing. Do you think she actually knows me – where I am from, what I value, how I learn? Okay, I admit it, I have not tried as hard as I could to help her know me.

The professors all seem really smart but vary greatly in their attitude toward students, whether they are accessible or even show up for their stated office hours. I do wonder, have they read the studies which demonstrate that different young people absorb knowledge differently? Or have I forgotten that nobody can care about my success as much as I do.

I go to the gym simply to work off my frustrations, or at least try to. Yeah, it is so pleasant to hear guys talking about networking or going into their father’s business when they graduate or ogling the blonde airhead on the next bike, whose presence at the college came through something called the “legacy” route. Is there an alternative to this activity as a stress reliever that is both legal and effective? Or do I put on headphones, shut out the noise, and, without wanting to, disappear further into my shell?

Hungry as I may be after a workout, I cringe at the thought of more bland, seasoning-deprived food from the corporate vendor in the college cafeteria. Mom, where are you when I need you?
Do I verbally react to the guys on the walk back to the dormitory attempting more grab ass than normal, feeling immune to discipline because their man is in the White House?

Some good news … maybe: diversity has been accomplished by my school! All they need to do is add the composition of the sports teams to that of EOP to that of the majority of the student body, and they are able to fill out the ethnic breakdown questionnaire in a manner which passes the test of political correctness. For those keeping a different kind of score, would you like to see the diversity in a classroom where an academically rigorous subject is being taught?

When I manage on an occasional weekend to get home, I have to shift gears once again, explaining to Mom (and once in a while, my mostly uninvolved Dad) how difficult my college courses are, attempting to connect with local friends whose higher education experience is at the nearby community college. How can I not be comfortable here … these are my American roots.

Often the conversational emphasis with these hometown peers is about their boyfriends or girlfriends.  Meanwhile, I have no helpmate to take me out of my funk. How could I be with a guy, trying to figure him out, when I cannot even figure myself out!

I go to my part-time job at a factory. It is virtually all undocumented adults working at jobs far below their educational attainment in their home country. Spanish is the predominant language and Trump tales a common subject of worried conversations; everybody seems to know somebody who has lost his or her job after being loyal employees for a decade or more. Where do I, fortunately now a legal resident, fit in this job setting that brings me the money I need for books and gas?

Maybe I am just caught up in an elaborate pity party for myself. Or maybe I am telling it like it is for many Latinas. Or maybe, the truth is really simple: this is just one person’s point of view.

All is know is that every decision– both education and otherwise, every place where this Latina is temporarily located, every interaction I have, the question never goes away: Who am I?